Hiren's Boot CD - HDD Diagnostics

I have a bunch of hard drives which I want to sell, so am wiping them using Hiren's Boot CD. I want to check that the drives are healthy first. Can anyone recommend a tool for this? There are several manufacturer ones on there, but are they specific to that brand?

What should I be looking out for? Is it the SMART monitoring?

Also, how do I access them from the disk on bootup?

Thanks!

Mark

Posted 2011-01-02T20:19:45.893

Reputation: 283

2+1 for doing the right thing before selling them. – Moab – 2011-01-02T20:38:03.587

Answers

I recommend using MHDD 4.6 (Also does mechanical check) or SmartUDM 2.00. If your drives support SMART, then you should be able to read their state from either of these programs. The should be in DOS tools, under Hard Disk Tools.

EDIT: And yes, most brand-specific tools will only work with their own branded hardware.

BloodPhilia

Posted 2011-01-02T20:19:45.893

Reputation: 27 374

Thanks for the update on that - worth knowing for the future! – Mark – 2011-01-02T21:30:06.943

@Mark You're very welcome! Only just saw that part on your question! ;) – BloodPhilia – 2011-01-02T21:31:02.823

If the system you are trying the drives out on has SMART, you can check the status with various utilities on the CD. Check out the Hiren's page and do a search (case-sensitive) for SMART: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd.

John T

Posted 2011-01-02T20:19:45.893

Reputation: 149 037

Some are spelled as S.M.A.R.T. – BloodPhilia – 2011-01-02T20:26:15.370

All titles that contain S.M.A.R.T also have it spelled as SMART somewhere in the description. – John T – 2011-01-02T20:27:18.440